Register an account now to get access to all board features. After you've registered and logged in, you'll be able to create topics, post replies, send and receive private messages, disable the viewing of ads and more!

Dusk
"New 90s inspired shooter"

To me, it looks like Quake meets Rise of the Triad; the player is flying all over the damn place like in RoTT with a setting reminiscent of Quake and a sprinkle of Max Payne
The graphics seem to be hit or miss; I like the design of the cultist looking guys, but parts of the levels look a bit underdeveloped and lacking shading.
It has three handmade episodes, a survival mode, and a 1-on-1 versus mode.

Looks like yet another game that forgot what made 90s shooters memorable; good-quality level design. It looks like they were too pre-occupied with making the graphics as shitty as possible to even care about making levels the way Romero and Levelord did. The jump pads look cool, but everything else seem so unoriginal. I won't judge it until the game's out though.

However, graphics isn't gameplay, so; I find Quake 1's graphics a lot more tolerable than this.

It's like a really shitty version of Quake. Why wouldn't I just play the games that influenced it that both look better and have excellent gameplay?

I think the main difference is the gameplay itself in this game; it looks like if Devil Daggers had a campaign and less Quake style level design. The amount of height the player is getting in the trailer seems to say the game will be a lot more vertical and possibly arena based.
I think the gameplay itself looks pretty fun and very fast paced

Looks promising to me, I love that it's not procedurally generated / roguelike. And a preview I read mentioned the demo level featured a toilet that works, where if you put gibs on it (not sure if they have to land on it) they'll actually flush down the toilet.

That is Probuilder + Progrids, that is what I was using when I originally started Gunload.
Had a lot of tedious optimization you had to do I wasn't quite used to, as well as texturing being kind of a pain, I don't blame them for the lower poly levels.

Between the outdoor environments and some aspects of the gameplay, I actually get more of a painkiller vibe from this than anything else. Never cared much for super low poly models, but I don't think they did a bad job of getting that late 90's shooter aesthetic down and it does look at least kinda fun. The only thing I'd say really rubs me wrong is how much they overkill the nods towards their "inspiration". If you're gonna do that shit at all, it ought to be subtle but with the trailer it feels like they're trying to build too much appeal on the nostalgia factor. I might give it a whirl if/when it drops, though. Nothing about it that looks terrible.

They did get the "shitty 1997 Quake TC played in a 2002+ source port" look down at least. looks like shrak, ypod and atf had a bad horrible looking baby. and probably requires dx11 + core i5 hardware to boot

Between the outdoor environments and some aspects of the gameplay, I actually get more of a painkiller vibe from this than anything else. Never cared much for super low poly models, but I don't think they did a bad job of getting that late 90's shooter aesthetic down

The criticisms being leveled against the game look fair to me. Contrary to the namedropping, the game is definitely patterned off of Quake more than anything, yet their choice of large, open, and "realistic" outdoor environments is very unlike anything its inspiration attempted. BSP limitations and performance issues in Quake would have prevented big outdoor areas from achieving much beyond flat and barren maps, which it looks like Dusk is actually aiming for, but that's still very unlike Quake's episodes and obviously rather flawed in and of itself. The levels in this trailer genuinely remind me of this ancient joke map:

So yes, Dusk is authentic to a degree, but not in terms of building to the strengths of its restrictions. Like STRAFE, it's missing the core of what made these old shooters excel in their field.

Good call, to be fair, that looks pretty good. I thought you might say Navy Seals (which is also good for the time). But I actually think this game looks great, I don't get what makes it look awful. A couple of the hallways are plain, other than that to me it doesn't look too bad. I think it looks aesthetically/artistically better than Malice myself.

I think people are just tougher on 3D games. On steam so many games have very low budget indie pixel art style that to me looks less aesthetically pleasing than most SNES or Genesis games. But people recognize it's a lower budget indie game and dig it, but for some reason don't seem as lenient on 3D games.

I remember when Deadpool came out for example (great looking game), people were complaining that it looked outdated. Not that you're making this argument, it just came to mind, some seem to want more from 3D games in the art/graphics department, more so than 2D games.

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 15 September 2016 - 06:41 PM

The criticisms being leveled against the game look fair to me. Contrary to the namedropping, the game is definitely patterned off of Quake more than anything, yet their choice of large, open, and "realistic" outdoor environments is very unlike anything its inspiration attempted. BSP limitations and performance issues in Quake would have prevented big outdoor areas from achieving much beyond flat and barren maps, which it looks like Dusk is actually aiming for, but that's still very unlike Quake's episodes and obviously rather flawed in and of itself. The levels in this trailer genuinely remind me of this ancient joke map:

So yes, Dusk is authentic to a degree, but not in terms of building to the strengths of its restrictions. Like STRAFE, it's missing the core of what made these old shooters excel in their field.

I often agree with the idea you're saying. I find a lot of modern level design is just making a big open realistic place. Like say Crysis 2, you wander across a big open field, to another big open place, etc. Maybe you go by a realistic building with a few rooms. Very little design and gameplay flow like we'd find in a meticulous masterpiece like a great Duke 3D or Quake map.

For this game though, I think that may be an unfair assessment. There are lots of little hallways and indoor rooms and locations in there, I'm not sure it's going to be all huge open spaces without thought put into the flow. I'd need to see/play more to fully judge there. Have I mentioned it has toilets?

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 15 September 2016 - 06:46 PM

It's less about graphics and more about selling on a retro novelty, making us believe why we continue to enjoy doom/quake because we have orgasms for low poly, simple-looking levels and pixels rather than any thought of design that goes into the games themselves (and the high amount of effort and love put into the artwork count sas well). It's kind of revisionist, in a way.

if that were true, then all the shitty "doom clones" in the day would have been very successful...... but they weren't.

It's less about graphics and more about selling on a retro novelty, making us believe why we continue to enjoy doom/quake because we have orgasms for low poly, simple-looking levels and pixels rather than any thought of design that goes into the games themselves

if that were true, then all the shitty "doom clones" in the day would have been very successful...... and they weren't.

Your point here would rely on this game not having thought and quality to it, which we don't really know though. All I'm saying is it looks promising to me.

Here's a bit from a Destructoid preview (which to be fair isn't 100% positive):

"The demo I was shown felt more like a box of toys than a video game level. I could interact with just about everything in the level, right down to a flushable toilet. (And by "flushable toilet," I mean "you can put giblets on the top of the toilet and it will flush.") There's also a bevy of graphical options designed to make the game look worse, to better emulate Doom and its contemporaries. It's also (yet another) retro shooter, so of course there are secrets to find! All these parts made me feel like the game was having a lot of fun with itself and wanted the player to join the party."

That at least sounds up the alley of Duke fans, and quite amusing. And secrets to find is surely another plus.

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 15 September 2016 - 06:58 PM

"(yet another) retro shooter"
Jesus Christ I really hope Strafe doesn't get a pass but anything else is just a 'me too' for all these publications as far as these shooters go, so few of them have done it right that we can't possibly be sick of developers trying.

"[It's] the sense of speed, fluid movement, and handcrafted episodic level design with interesting psuedo-nonlinear levels" from '90s FPSes that he hopes to reproduce in Dusk. As for the tumbling aerial move shown in the trailer, Szymanski says that "The game simply unlocks the vertical axis when [players are] in the air, allowing them to aim 360 degrees to track enemies below/above, or just to look cool. When they land, the plan is to have the player do a Mirror's Edge style roll. We want to try and make each level and episode stand out as best we can."

"(yet another) retro shooter"
Jesus Christ I really hope Strafe doesn't get a pass but anything else is just a 'me too' for all these publications as far as these shooters go, so few of them have done it right that we can't possibly be sick of developers trying.

Too late. Both massive gaming sites, like Giantbomb and Game Informer, and smaller outlets, like Hardcore Gamer and Shacknews, have already given Strafe glowing previews following recent hands-on presentations. Barring disaster, it's going to be a big hit.

Unless it ships first, most will probably see New Bloods and Dusk as Devolver wannabes.

A lot of these "retro" wannabies seem to forget that several of the 90's games actually had really good architecture.

They proclaim to be an homage to nineties gaming, but generally turn out as more of an insult to that era.
That "bevy of graphical options designed to make the game look worse, to better emulate Doom and its contemporaries" remark speaks volumes, espcially now that there are several Doom source ports around that offer a lot of graphical effects the original didn't have.

They proclaim to be an homage to nineties gaming, but generally turn out as more of an insult to that era.
That "bevy of graphical options designed to make the game look worse, to better emulate Doom and its contemporaries" remark speaks volumes, espcially now that there are several Doom source ports around that offer a lot of graphical effects the original didn't have.

That'd be like saying "the option for big heads in Turok speaks volumes". The default mode in the trailer looks rendered smooth and modern. You're focusing on little details and painting a negative picture that, in my journalistic opinion, doesn't reflect the facts.

Not to say the game can't end up not being good, and it's subject to personal taste anyway, but what do you have to suggest this game will be an insult to that era? Just seems like you would rather not give it a chance.

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 16 September 2016 - 01:35 AM

Previous comments of leilei and Micky C reflect my sentiments; I feel a lot of these so-called retro games are misguided in their approach.
In stead of capitalising on '90s FPS strengths such as the relative lack of linearity and the sense of adventure and discovery, they focus on "ye olde graphics", conveniently 'forgetting' that they were the standard of the day back then (and some even went beyond that).
Dusk is supposed to be "a throwback to the glorious FPS of the 90's", but I really don't see anything resembling the glory of Doom, Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Jedi Knight, Unreal, Half-Life or even Quake.
I get more of a "nineties gaming, right? LOL" feel from stuff like this.

Still not quite sure what you're basing this on, other than apparently not liking the graphics? I also don't think Unreal's campaign is even good after the beginning, it gets old by the middle. The combat in this will also probably be better than Unreal, though everybody likes different stuff.

As for insulting the era, the era had so many awful FPS games. Lots of great ones, but plenty of awful ones too, let's not put it on a pedestal just because we'd like to see a return to good 90s elements that are largely missing these days. Jedi Knight has some pretty shitty levels too. That game has cool parts, and bad parts in my opinion. Those arent' the awful ones btw, those would be Blood 2, etc.

The combat to me looks good, the level design seems like it could be thought out and much more oldschool in design philosphy than most current FPS games (though we'll need to see more / play to know for sure). It's easily going to be better than Shadow Warrior 2 most likely, which everybody is pumped for around here. I guess everybody just digs different stuff, I just don't really get the negative reception this game is getting.

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 16 September 2016 - 02:18 AM

What we're talking about is games of this nature in general, rather than this specific title. We're then extending that on the balance of probabilities, this title goes along with the rest of them in assuming that simple graphics are a large part of what made 90's games good.
Some of the evidence, such as that 'making it look worse' statement heavily supports that notion. Then again some aspects do look interesting such as the speed of movement, the interactivity, and the jump pads/verticality, so we'll have to wait and see.

What we can all agree on is that there's really yet to be a commercial game claiming to be a throwback to 90's FPS that really nails all of the elements.

The making it look worse statement is by the guy who wrote the preview. And extra graphics options to make it look jaggy or whatever don't heavily support your narrative. Did you read the interview tidbit Mr. Tibbs posted?

"[It's] the sense of speed, fluid movement, and handcrafted episodic level design with interesting psuedo-nonlinear levels" from '90s FPSes that he hopes to reproduce in Dusk. As for the tumbling aerial move shown in the trailer, Szymanski says that "The game simply unlocks the vertical axis when [players are] in the air, allowing them to aim 360 degrees to track enemies below/above, or just to look cool. When they land, the plan is to have the player do a Mirror's Edge style roll. We want to try and make each level and episode stand out as best we can."

And also levels containing secrets, etc. And from the snippets we see in the trailer, I can imagine there very well could be some cool level design in this. But I also thought the new Doom game looked very awesome when many were saying it was going to be shitty, who knows how everybody pieces together their perception of an unreleased game. We're all working with the same info.

The combat looks fun, the level design looks promising. All you're talking about is the graphics, and how nothing matches the 90s. How about this project in particular, anything other than graphics to chime in on? (edit: I see you do like some aspects of it.) One of the things X-Vector asked for is directly mentioned in that interview snippet by the way.

(Just for the record, having watched the recent 20+ min Strafe gameplay, I think Strafe looks not that good. But I go on a case by case basis for every game.)

This post has been edited by PsychoGoatee: 16 September 2016 - 02:46 AM